International Action Partners

Green Belt Movement In Action

Before Wangari died, she expressed interest in changing the name of the Civic and Environmental Education seminars. She felt so strongly that these seminars were the basis for understanding a community’s problems and the solutions to those problems, and that after taking the 3-4 day seminar participants would have a completely different motivation to plant trees.

And of course, she was right! She knew that participants became empowered by the workshop, so she wanted the word “empowerment” to be a part of the new name. So, Civic and Environmental Education seminars came to be called Community Empowerment and Education seminars (CEE).

The pages on the GBM website under What We Do (Tree Planting and Watersheds, Climate Change, Mainstream Advocacy, and Gender Livelihood and Advocacy) are all programs that are documented in the film Taking Root, though perhaps not specifically named as such. These programs are grassroots, community-based programs, but in the aggregate they clearly have had a great effect nationally as well as beyond the borders of Kenya.

Related Environmental Organizations

Click logos to visit partner sites

Green Belt Movement provides income and sustenance to millions of people in Kenya through tree planting and conducts educational campaigns to raise awareness about women’s rights, civic empowerment and the environment throughout Kenya and Africa.

350.org is an internationalgrassroots campaign that is mobilizing a global climate movement through a common call to action – reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million..

Alliance for Community Trees is dedicated to improving the health and livability of cities by planting and caring for trees. With 160 grassroots affiliates in 40 states and Canada, ACT member organizations have planted and cared for 14.9 million trees in cities with help from 4.3 million volunteers.

Green For All is dedicated to fighting poverty and pollution, and advocates for local, state and federal green job creation, job training, and entrepreneurial opportunities, especially for people from disadvantaged communities.

Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign, supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and inspired by Wangari Maathai, encourages people around the globe to make a tree planting pledge online with the collective goal of planting at least one billion trees worldwide each year.